How to Love a Garden
Expanding the circle of intimacy
The hostas are pushing up their shoots, a circle of small spines reaching out of the soil. Before too long, their leaves will spread out, the plants lounging out over the flowerbed. By the time the summer has reached its height, they’ll be wearing their purple flowers. Walking around the garden this weekend I was delighted to see the first sign of the hostas’ return: Hello, old friends, I said. Glad to have you back.
I’ve got to know all the plants in my garden in the two years I’ve lived here. The hostas are chill, relaxed plants, who if they were people would smoke weed and take midday naps. The dalmatian irises are Victorian old maids, a little prim and fussy, but always beautifully turned out. They sneak out of the party early, their bloom over by the time the summer gets into full swing. The alliums like to be the centre of attention with their striking displays — even when the petals fade, their seed heads can’t help but draw your eye.
I love getting to know all the plants and creatures who call this place home
I know which plants the butterflies and the bees love (the coneflowers, oh how they adore the coneflowers). I know the caterpillars will strip the parsely plant bare. Every worm I meet as I turn over soil or pull weeds I say “hello” and “thank you” to, knowing they’re keeping my soil healthy. I welcome the chickadees, the sparrows, the robins, the cardinals, the blue jays, and even once, a hawk to my garden. I love getting to know all the plants and creatures who call this place home.
Green Thumbs
I never really had a green thumb. As a child, gardening didn’t really interest me, and as an adult, I had a terrible track record with houseplants. But when we moved into our place, I was excited by the prospect of my garden. We first saw the place in January, when the garden looked bare and unloved. It was clear that no one had been looking after the garden for a while — I wanted to give my energy and attention to tending it once more.
When spring came, it was clear that someone in the garden’s history had loved it deeply. Hardy perennials delivered their first flashes of colour. The grapevines began to grow leaves, then fruit. I could begin adding to this garden, and I could take care of what was already there, but I didn’t need to start from scratch.
I learned loving a garden can be about ego… but it can also be about humility
I learned that loving a garden can be about ego (how I want things to look, making decisions, trying to shape nature to my will) but it can also be about humility (waiting, being surprised by what has seeded and germinated in the winter, mourning plants that fail to take). I try to balance the two — making decisions to make this garden a more hospitable place for the other creatures who enjoy it, while never losing sight of the fact that a much bigger story is unfolding without my help.
Maybe I didn’t need a green thumb. Maybe I just needed to take good care, and then let the rest happen.
Closeness
I love the tomatoes that feed us, the rich peppery scent of their leaves. I love the lavender blooming. I love the dandelions peppering the lawn, their faces so bright and cheerful. I love the shade of the tree by the patio.
Intimacy, like love, is meant to be reciprocal. I recognize how it might sound, this love letter to my garden — like someone pining over a person they can’t have, like falling in love with the moon. Impossible and maybe even pointless.
Lately, I’ve been reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer: slowly, savouring each chapter. Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, writes beautifully about how our relationship with the land is reciprocal. Plants and animals are our teachers, our guides, our sustenance, our neighbours. Kimmerer writes about the reckless divide we have imagined between humanity and the rest of the world:
Philosophers call this state of isolation and disconnection “species loneliness” — a deep, unnamed sadness stemming from estrangement from the rest of Creation, from the loss of relationship. As our human dominance of the world has grown, we have become more isolated, more lonely when we can no longer call out to our neighbors.
Kimmerer expresses a truth I have long sought words for; a desire to expand the circle of intimacy far beyond the human, to recognize the ways that the natural world reaches out, speaks, shares, comforts. There’s nothing pointless about loving a garden: it feels like the very least I can do in return for everything that this land has given to me.
A Starting Point
Once a week or so, a pair of cardinals will visit my garden. When I spot them, I stop what I’m doing, watch them for as long as they flit between the branches. Sometimes I find myself holding my breath, sometimes I laugh as they seem to play tag. I crane my neck to follow their path. When they leave, I am full of wonder and gratitude: they always brighten my day.
This is a first step: to give the gift of your attention to the world around you. Intimacy in human relationships comes from long talks, vulnerability, shared experience. Intimacy beyond humans comes from offering our undivided attention. Stopping and noticing. Not mediating through cameras or thinking about the social media post we’ll write. Not turning away to try and discover what species you’re looking at, rather than really looking. This is a work in progress for me; it takes practice, and I don’t always manage.
Give the gift of your attention to the world around you.
I know it’s the only way to create this intimacy I so long for. To be present, to be aware, to be willing to be amazed. When I am able to make the effort, I am never disappointed.
Note: My garden stands on the territories of the Wendat, Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Mississaugas of the Credit Nation, and the Métis Nation. I am a settler on this land and my very presence here is part of an ongoing history of violence and colonization. To love my garden also means to understand, reckon with, and acknowledge this injustice. If you want to learn more about the land you occupy, visit https://native-land.ca/ .
